Sinead rips up the Pope's picture (1992)

Twenty years ahead of her time:

The next week, Joe Pesci would host the show and, in his monologue, would tell the audience how he would have physically assaulted her if he'd been hosting a week earlier - and he received wild applause from the audience.

That same week, she would get booed by Bob Dylan fans at a concert.

Of course, this guy was awesome enough to be one of the lone voices to stand up for her:

A track from last year's album about the Vatican and its crimes against children:

6. Singer Sinead O’Connor has revealed she was a victim of the Magdalene Laundries

Sinead O’Connor reveals her torment after she was sent to a Magdalene Laundry
Singer says Laundries experience is why she ripped up Pope photo on TV
By PATRICK COUNIHAN, IrishCentral Staff Writer
Published Thursday, February 7, 2013, 7:20 AMUpdated Thursday, February 7, 2013, 9:32 AM

Singer Sinead O’Connor has revealed she was a victim of the Magdalene Laundries scandal – and it affected her for life.

The ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ hit-maker has made the revelation in an interview with the Irish Sun newspaper.

She spoke out just 24 hours after the publication of a damning report on the Laundries which has highlighted state collusion with the Nuns who ran them.

O’Connor, now 46, has told the Irish Sun how she was just 14 when she was sent to the Sisters of

Our Lady of Charity laundry in Dublin after she was labelled a ‘problem child.’

She told the paper: “We were girls in there, not women, just children really. And the girls in there cried every day.

“It was a prison. We didn’t see our families, we were locked in, cut off from life, deprived of a normal childhood.

“We were told we were there because we were bad people. Some of the girls had been raped at home and not believed.

Read more: Pressure mounts on Government to issue formal apology to Magdalene survivors

“One girl was in because she had a bad hip and her family didn’t know what to do with her. It was a great grief to us.”

The rock star explained how her 18 months in High Park in the Drumcondra suburb of Dublin left her so angry at the injustice that it was part of the reason she caused worldwide controversy by tearing up a picture of the Pope on live television.

She added: “It wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of them.”

Lashing out at the Church’s ‘flaccid’ apology, O’Connor said she was ‘disgusted’ by it.